Caseyville man faces up to 120 years in prison for rape of girl

A Caseyville man will be sentenced next month after a jury found he molested his daughters’ friend during sleepovers.

David Ryder, 43, was found guilty by a jury last week on sexual assault and abuse charges. They deliberated three and a half hours before returning the guilty verdict.

“The defendant couldn’t get her to agree to it when she was awake, so he took it from her when she was unable to stop him, when she was asleep,” said Assistant State’s Attorney Judy Dalan, who prosecuted the case.

Prosecutors said the 12-year-old victim became friends with Ryder’s two young daughters. During the summer of 2013, the victim spent a lot of time at Ryder’s house, including spending the night.

Sign Up and Save

Ryder began staring at the victim, then grabbing and patting her, prosecutors said. He then began to ask the victim to touch his penis or perform oral sex, according to testimony. Each time, the victim refused.

One night, the victim woke up with Ryder’s sex organ in her hand, prosecutors said.

Ryder told police, “I just woke up and was in the mood to do something and the wife wasn’t…I walked by the bedroom to go to the bathroom and looked in there, and her hand was like this on the bed…so I just walked in there and laid my penis in her hand and rubbed it a few times.” Ryder made the statement during a videotaped interrogation, which was played for the jury.

Ryder proceeded to have sex with the victim while his own 7-year-old daughter lay next to her. When his daughter woke up during the assault, prosecutors said, Ryder told her to turn her head.

Ryder faces 12 to 120 years in prison when St. Clair County Circuit Judge Jan Fiss sentences him.

Read Next

An Illinois State Police trooper was hit by a tractor trailer while working a crash scene on I55 near Collinsville. He was airlifted to a hospital with serious injuries and is the 14th cop hit by a car in 2019.